were the words, "Sowing the Tares;" and the face looked more like a demon's than a man's. As he sowed these tares, up came serpents and reptiles, and they were crawling upon his body; and all around were woods, with wolves and animals prowling in them. I have seen that picture many times since. Ah! the reaping time is coming. If you sow to the flesh, you must reap to the flesh. If you sow to the wind, you must reap the whirlwind. God wants you to come to him, and receive salvation as a gift. You can decide your destiny to-day if you will. Heaven and hell are set before this audience; and you are called upon to choose. Which will you have? If you will take him he will receive you to his arms. If you reject him, he will reject you.

Now, my friends, will Christ ever be more willing to save you than he is now? Well he ever have more power than he has now? Then why not be saved now? Why not make up your mind to be saved now, while mercy is offered to you? I remember a few years ago, while the Spirit of God was working in our church, I closed the meeting one night by asking if there were any that would like to become Christians to rise; and to my great joy a man arose that had been anxious for some time. I went up to him and took him by the hand and shook it and said: "I am glad to see you get up. You are coming out for the Lord now, in earnest?" "Yes," said he, "I think so. That is, there is only one thing in my way." Said I, "What's that?" "Well," said he, "I lack moral courage. I confess to you that if such a man"-naming a friend of his "Had been here tonight, I should not have risen. He would laugh at me if he knew of this; and I don't believe I have the courage to tell him." "But," said I, "you have got to come out boldly for the Lord, if you come out at all. That is what you have got to do;" and I talked with him, and he was trembling from head to foot. I thought the Spirit of God was striving with him, and I believe the Spirit was striving earnestly with him. I did not labor with that man as I have often wished since that I had. I wish that night I had prayed more earnestly with him. He came back the next night, and the next night, and the next night; and the Spirit of God strove with him for weeks. It seemed as if he came to the very threshold of heaven, and was almost stepping over into the blessed world. I never could find out any reason for this hesitation, except that he feared his old companions would laugh at him. I notice that when men go to prison, no one laughs at them; but when they come out and declare their intention of leading good lives and standing up for Jesus, the men laugh at them and make sport of them.

Well, I thought surely this man would be brought into the fold; but at last the Spirit of God seemed to leave him; conviction was gone. And then, after that, when he used to meet me on the street he used to shun me; and if I met him coming along the same side of

the street, he would cross over to the other side, and dodge me in every way he could. He finally got so he didn't come to church on the Sabbath. He always used to come before. And that is the fault some people find with these meetings. They say it hardens people. Yes, it does harden some people. Any man that goes through a special meeting like this and rejects the gospel, of course becomes hardened, and his chances are much less for heaven. The things that formerly moved them do not move them so readily the next time. It hardens a great many; it hardened this man. Six months after that time, I got a message from him that he was sick and wanted to see me. I went to him, in great haste. He was very sick, and thought he was dying. He asked me if there was any hope. Yes, I told him. God had sent Christ to save him, and I prayed with him. Contrary to all expectations and to the belief of the physicians, he recovered and got off from his sick-bed. One day I went down to see him. It was a bright, beautiful day, and he was sitting out in front of his house convalescing rapidly; and I said: "You are coming out for God now, aren't you? You will be well enough soon to come back to our meetings again?" Said he: "Mr. Moody, I have made up my mind to become a Christian. My mind is fully made up to that; but I won't be one just now. I am going to Michigan to buy a farm and settle down; and then I will become a Christian." Said I, "But you don't know yet that you will get well." "Oh," said he, "I will be perfectly well in a few days. I'll risk it. I have got a new lease of life." "Oh," said I, "It seems to me that you are tempting God;" and I pleaded with him, and tried every way to get him to take his stand. At last said he: “Mr. Moody, I can't be a Christian in Chicago. When I get away from Chicago, and get to Michigan, away from my friends and acquaintances, who laugh at me, I will be ready to go to Christ." Said I: "If God has not got grace enough to save you in Chicago, he has not in Michigan;" and I preached Christ to him, and urged Christ upon him. At last he got a little irritated, and said: "Mr. Moody, you can just attend to your business, and I will to mine; and if I lose my soul, no one will be to blame but myself-certainly not you, for you have done all you could." I went away from that house then with a heavy heart.

I well remember the day of the week, Thursday, about noon, just one week from that very day, when I was sent for by his wife to come in great haste. I hurried there at once. His poor wife met me at the door, and I asked her what was the matter. "My husband," she said, "has been taken down with the same disease; and I have just had a council of physicians here; and they have all given him up to die." Said I, "Does he want to see me?" "No," said she. "Then why did you send for me?" Said she, "I cannot bear to see him die in this terrible state of mind." "What does he say?"

I asked. Said she: "He says his damnation is sealed, and he will be in hell in a little while." I went in, and he at once fixed his eye upon me. I called him by name, but he was speechless. I went around to the foot of the bed and looked into his face and said, "Won't you speak to me?" And at last he fixed that terrible, deathly look upon me and said: "Mr. Moody, you need not talk to me any more. It is too late. You can talk to my wife and children; pray for them; but my heart is as hard as the iron in that stove there. My damnation is sealed, and I will be in hell in a little while." I tried to tell him of Jesus' love and of God's forgiveness; but he said: "Mr. Moody, don't you mock me. I tell you there is no hope for me." And as I fell on my knees he said: "You need not pray for me; you need not pray for a lost soul. My wife will soon be left a widow, and my children will be fatherless. They need your prayers; but you need not pray for me." I tried to pray; but it seemed as if my prayers didn't go higher than my head, and as if the heaven above me was like brass. As I took the cold, clammy hand the sweat of death was upon it; and it seemed like bidding farewell to a man I should never see in time or eternity. I left him with a broken heart. That was about noon. The next day his wife told me he lingered until the sun went down behind those western prairies; and from noon until he died, all he was heard to say was, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved." After lingering along an hour he would say again those words; and just as he was expiring his wife noticed his lips quiver, and that he was trying to say something; and as she bent over him she heard him mutter: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved!" and the angels bore him away to judgment. He lived a Christless life; he died a Christless death; we wrapped him in a Christless shroud, aud bore him away to a Christless grave. Oh, how dark and sad!

Are there some here who are almost persuaded to be Christians? Take my advice, and not let anything keep you away. Fly to the arms of Jesus, this day and hour. You can be saved, if you will. Son, remember! I have warned you to-day. Daughter, remember! you cannot say that I did not lift up a warning voice to-day, and exhort you with all my soul to escape the damnation of hell.

WHAT SEEK YE?

"One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother." JOHN 1: 40.

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be add d unto you." MATTHEW 6: 33.

There are two things I want to call your attention to, this evening The first is in the words of the 1st chapter of John, 40th verse; and the second is in the 6th chapter of Matthew, 33d verse. The first text is the first words that fell from the lips of Christ, at the commencement of his ministry. It was the question he put to those two disciples who came and questioned him as to where he dwelt. One afternoon, about four o'clock, John the Baptist stood with two of his disciples, and Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, a little way off; and John lifted up his hand and pointed to the man off in the distance, and said: "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world!" and John, the beloved disciple, and Andrew left their old master and went together toward Jesus; and Jesus turned around as they came up to him and said: "What seek ye?" I thought this evening I would like for a few moments to call your attention to that text, and press that question home upon the people here. I would like to have all of you ask yourselves the questions: What are you seeking? What did you come for? What motive brought you here this evening? What do these great crowds of people here mean, day after day, week after week.

There were all classes of people seeking for Christ, and they had every kind of motive for seeking him. There were some who came out of curiosity, just to see what would happen. There was another class who came to him because they had friends that were diseased, and they wanted their friends to be healed and blessed. There was the class who came with the hope of getting the loaves and fishes. And there was still another class, that were trying to murder him and get him out of the way; they were watching him, and striving to get him into some conversation in which they might entangle him with his words, and so get an excuse to bring him before the Sanhedrim, and cause him to be called guilty of blasphemy, and punisled. Some sought him for what they could get; and others sought him for what he was. And that is the class we are after, namely, those who are not seeking Christ for what they can get, but who are seeking him for what he is, personally. I have no doubt but that a great many of the disciples first sought him in order to be identified

with him; because they thought he would set up an earthly kingdom, and establish his throne upon earth. Judas perhaps thought so, and that he might become the chief treasurer of such a kingdom; and perhaps Peter thought that he might become the chief secretary; and when the sons of Zebedee found out that it was a spiritual kingdom that he was to establish, their mother came and asked of Christ that her sons might be placed the one upon his right hand, and the other upon his left. All the time during his ministry, Christ constantly found men seeking for office and honor; and that is precisely the spirit to-day. One of our greatest troubles, and one great reason why we do not get greater blessings from God, is because we are pure in our motives for seeking him. I say there is not a man. or a woman (and I see they are nearly all women here to-night), whe has come here for a blessing from God, and who has that motive, but will get it. Others will go away without any blessing, and with hearts as hard and cold as ever. Why? Because they have not come to get a blessing.

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I would like to ask you to take this brief question home to your hearts to-day, "What seek ye?" What are you after this evening? What motive brought you to this place? I think one would say; "I came because some friends of mine were coming; I did not have any particular motive at all; I came because my friends asked me to come." I ask another, What did you come for? "Well, I came to see the crowd; I heard there were a great many men and women here; and I thought it would be a wonderful sight to see so many together." A man told me the other day that he came to see the chairs. He said he heard there were 10,000 chairs all in one hall; and he thought they must look so strange. He had a curiosity to see them. Thank God, that man got caught in the gospel net that very night; and I hope some others that come just out of curiosity, this evening, will get caught with the old gospel net. But, to return to our question, What brought you here? A lady over there says; "I came to hear the singing; I don't care anything about the preaching. I have heard the word preached till I am tired of it; and if I had my way about it, I would rather get up and go out as soon as the singing is over." But if any of you have come here with such motives, and will change your minds after you get here, and will seek to come to God to-night, you will find him, whatever your motive was at first in coming. You may even have come here to make sport of the meeting; you may have come here to ridicule everything you should hear; but if you will repent, and change your mind, the Lord Jesus will bless you to-night, and forgive you, and this may be the best meeting you ever was at in your life.

Now I want to call your attention to the other text I spoke of. My text is both a question and a command. The question is, "What seek ye?" and the command is this: "Seek ye first the kingdom